On Monday, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported another instance of a banned ship-to-ship fuel transfer involving a North Korean vessel in the East China Sea. The alleged sactions-busting activity took place on the night of May 19 at a position about 190 nm southeast of Shanghai, a region …

29 MAY 2018 No food straddles the line between fruit and vegetable more famously than the tomato. And while your elementary-school teacher or know-it-all friend may have informed you that tomatoes are technically fruits, the answer isn’t so clear-cut. In reality, tomatoes are both fruits and vegetables at the same …

29TH MAY 2018 While many eyes are on China’s port investments in the Indian Ocean, Japan has also been busy. The scale of its infrastructure investments in the region rivals, and sometimes exceeds, that of China. But Japan argues that its growing presence in the Indian Ocean is qualitatively different, …

29th may 2018 The government of South Korea is designating five shipbuilding regions as “industry crisis special areas,” the latest in a series of interventions in the nation’s hard-hit shipyard sector. These zones include parts of Geoje, Jinhae, Mokpo, Tongyeong and Ulsan. In a statement released Tuesday, Finance Minister Kim …

28th may 2018 Humane Society International has expressed outrage that 122 pregnant female whales were killed this year in the Southern Ocean as part of Japan’s whaling program NEWREP-A. The information was contained in newly published meeting papers from the International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee meeting held in Slovenia in …

28 MAY 2018 Every two years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is required to tell the president how the US is doing in regard to science and engineering. “As economies worldwide grow increasingly knowledge-intensive and interdependent, capacity for innovation becomes ever more critical,” the NSF says in its latest report, titled …

27th may 2018 Over the last four years 20 incubators, accelerators and clusters focused on the Blue Economy and blue technology have formed in North America, bringing the current total to 26. You may be asking yourself: “what the hell is the Blue Economy?” It’s a good question, and if …

27 MAY 2018 Scientists have shed new light on how crazy weather extremes can be caused by jet stream ‘traffic jams’ – high-altitude backlogs of air that apparently work a little like how cars slow down your peak hour trip to the office every morning. Crucially, understanding how these currents become backed …

26 MAY 2018 It sounds like a work of alternative history fiction: as Soviet forces closed in on Adolf Hitler’s bunker in Berlin, the Führer fled in the nick of time to South America where he lived in hiding for another 17 years. As far as conspiracy theories go, it’s …

27 MAY 2018 For thousands of years people have used cannabis for recreational, ritualistic and medicinal purposes. In the modern era, the latter property excites a lot of people, and there is no shortage of wild claims about the supposed medical benefits of the plant. Of all the claims, perhaps …